photo credit: crimsong19
Today I put Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load in my wishlist and thought, “I’m such a learning nerd.” I love to learn and I have a high tolerance for boring education and hard to read books because I’m really motivated when I want to know something. (Not that I think the above book will be boring, no offense meant, Ruth Clark.)
Since I was a little kid, I’ve thought of better ways to teach people who don’t have as high a tolerance for slogging though bog-like educational materials. So you would think that I would be in the correct field right now.
After a lot of careful thinking, I got a master’s degree in education and became an instructional designer. I LOVED my program and I LOVED the people I went to school with. We got along so easily. It was like we were the same tribe of people. I loved the projects we got to do. They were fun. They were creative.
You would think all of this points to job happiness. However, my experience in the field so far hasn’t been that positive. Actually, for the most part, I HATED my last job. I had to sit in an office, sit still, sit in front of the computer. My job was basically a high level admin job and I’ve seen a lot of jobs that are advertised in my field that are the same. I don’t want to be a (not so glorified) secretary!!
Admin jobs are the WORST for me. People need different things in their lives, and I NEED autonomy, variety, and stimulation.
Among other things, I find human beings, movement, and creating something stimulating. So, sitting alone in front of a computer doing admin work??? NO!!!!!!!! Not for me. What’s a girl with an instructional design degree to do? That’s what I’m trying to figure out.
Maybe I need further education? Maybe I need to switch fields all together? Whatever I do, I will always want to communicate ideas with people so they will change their behavior which is what my awesome education was about. So, it wasn’t wasted. But what do I do NOW?
A little slide-show about making e-learning interesting by Cathy Moore. I think most of you will be able to relate to the first part of it – the BORING Corporate Drone! Dun dun dun! AGH!
aaaaah! That’s totally on my Amazon wish list too. We do like the same things – I loved your other Cathy Moore post elsewhere. Cognitive load is one of my favorite hobby topics – ooh, and schema theory. :) I think I’m more willing to be a corporate drone than you are – partly by temperament and partly b/c of Allison’s advice in class about delivering consistently on bread-and-butter e-learning projects to gain credibility and be trusted to segue into what you want to do. But it’s not a straight path, for sure – and not a guaranteed one.
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Braidwood Reply:
February 9th, 2010 at 11:46 am
I wish I had more ability to sit still. Intellectually, I think even basic e-learning is interesting, but I think I’m a little too ADD to handle the long hours sitting. If I have team mates- I can do it because its fun for me to work with other people, but sitting still AND being alone is torturous for me.
I feel guilty that I haven’t progressed in my career like you have. I admire how you’ve moved forward. I’m hoping that I find my way. I guess I’m finding my way- I just hope there is some *there* there that I’m going to eventually get to.
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